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Björn Rust Nov 30, 2022

Timnit Gebru (@timnitGebru) adds another nail in the coffin of effective altruism (EA) with her piece for WIRED: https://www.wired.com/story/effective-altruism-artificial-intelligence-sam-bankman-fried/

For me, this follows »The good delusion: has effective altruism broken bad?« by Linda Kinstler: https://www.economist.com/1843/2022/11/15/the-good-delusion-has-effective-altruism-broken-bad

And »Against longtermism« by Émile P Torres: https://aeon.co/essays/why-longtermism-is-the-worlds-most-dangerous-secular-credo

Effective Altruism Is Pushing a Dangerous Brand of ‘AI Safety’

This philosophy—supported by tech figures like Sam Bankman-Fried—fuels the AI research agenda, creating a harmful system in the name of saving humanity

WIRED

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moooping Dec 1, 2022

@bjornrust @timnitGebru Do you understand Longtermism as always being a “tech will save us” story? On the face of it thinking about the long term doesn’t sound unreasonable. Similarly, making Altruism more effective is difficult to criticise and in fact banal if it doesn’t lead to such weird misallocations of resources that you point out in your article.

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Björn Rust

@moooping @timnitGebru I agree that we ought to consider long-term solutions. However, those who follow the Longtermism doctrine seem to take a rather deterministic view that often appears dangerously techno-optimistic. I am presently re-evaluating my feelings toward Longtermism and effective altruism (EA) as someone who identifies with Peter Singer's philosophy.